A Middle Class Familial Comitragedy

by Paul Nachbar

I imagine a married adult couple here
The genders of each being up to your imagination for now.
"He" is laying in bed, in a double bed or separate bed,
Reading a big thick book entitled "Lies the Way He Likes to Hear Them";
"She' for her part, is also laying in bed, reading another big thick book
Entitled "Lies the Way She Likes to Hear Them".
In between their doses of such readings, they exchange hostile or friendly
Or co- conspiratorial or humorous or erotic or amorous glances at one another.
They do this for a very long time.
At the foot of the bed, hidden in shadows, are the children
Who may or may not just be kids.
Or perhaps they are in the next room or in rooms far far away
Or very very very far away in some other place and time.
I imagine here a boy and a girl though it could be two boys or two girls
Who are not at the moment reading anything at all, respectable or unrespectable
To read, condemned or applauded by the official or unofficial critics and experts And Censors
Who both whisper, though not in the same voices perhaps
About 'truths nobody wants to hear":
The ones who seemingly did not quite 'make' it.
And so on and so on and so on...